#4. Brodie Retallick (New Zealand)
Age: 31
Test caps: 99
Nation: New Zealand
Club: Chiefs
The All Blacks veteran has been one of the best second-rows in the world for a while now.
Brodie Retallick facts:
- He was a key member of 2015 Rugby World Cup-winning team, the winner of World Rugby Player of the Year in 2014 and is the award’s youngest winner to date
- Retallick made his international debut for New Zealand in 2012 and has been a regular starter ever since
- In his free time, Retallick enjoys cruising in classic cars
- Retallick married Niki Thompson, a nurse, in 2015. Together they have two daughters
#3 Maro Itoje (England)
Age: 28
Test caps: 56
Nation: England
Club: Saracens
Having been among the world’s premier players for some time now, Itoje has not quite been at his best so far in 2022. The veteran lock was a shining light in England’s below-par Six Nations campaign.
Maro Itoje facts:
- His full name is much more of a mouthful. The lock was born Oghenemaro Miles Itoje in Camden, London on 28 October 1994 to Nigerian parents
- As a schoolboy, Itoje played several sports including basketball, football, rugby and athletics, representing England at U17 level in shot put
- Maro got a rugby scholarship to London Harrow school when he was 11. He then studied for a Politics degree at the School of Oriental and African Studies in Bloomsbury, London
- The current England star writes poetry in his free time and tried his hand at modelling too
- He is the cousin of Bath’s loosehead prop Beno Obano. Gloucester speedster Ollie Thorley is also Itoje’s cousin, after his grandfather re-married a Nigerian woman who is the Saracens lock’s aunt.